But that was for later, after she heard back from Jason and Ford. For now, she just wanted to get into that gaol. She just wanted to see Trick and wrap him in her arms and tell him she was sorry, so sorry…
When the cab rattled to a halt, she unclenched her fists and hurried to get out.
Newgate Prison had burned in the Great Fire two years earlier and was only partially rebuilt. The new entrance was magnificently decorated. Four figures represented Liberty, Peace, Security, and Plenty, but behind the impressive facade, the gaol itself remained as miserable as Kendra had always heard.
After she paid a man at the gate, it creaked open to admit her to what seemed a dark pit of squalor. Her footsteps echoed in a stone corridor still blackened from the fire. Noxious odors of slops, rotten food, and unwashed bodies made her gag before she stepped into the relatively luxurious keeper’s house.
“Walter Cowday,” a hard, graying man introduced himself. “Who you here to see?”
“The Black Highwayman.”
He raised a grizzled brow and held out a hand. Her heart pounding, she put a silver coin in it, and then another and another. When he remained silent, she added the one she had of gold. She clenched her hand around her few remaining coins; she’d never imagined it would cost this much.
“He went straight to the condemned hold. Lucky bastard don’t have to wait. Tyburn Fair day tomorrow.”
When she failed to show the proper excitement for the public holiday that a execution meant, he pocketed the money and motioned for her to follow him back to the corridor.
He lifted a hatch door and pointed down. “There you go. If you’ve more silver, a guard will point the way.”
Holding her cumbersome skirts in one hand, she descended a ladder and dropped to a damp stone floor.
Bleak gray cells lined both sides of another corridor, moisture trickling down their walls. Each looked about eight feet by six, furnished with a wooden bench and a Bible. The iron candlesticks, one per hold bolted to the stone, apparently were saved for night. The only light came filtered though a tiny window high in each cell, covered by heavy iron bars.
She swallowed hard and started searching down the corridor. It was cold and dark, and she stumbled more than once. Men hooted at her, and chains clanked as they stuck their arms through the bars and grabbed at her in the blackness. Tears pricked her eyelids.
Trick was nowhere to be found.
“Who goes there?”
She couldn’t remember ever being as relieved when a uniformed guard appeared in the corridor holding a burning torch. Blessed light.
“I’m looking for the Black Highwayman.”
Wordlessly, he held out a hand, and she gladly filled it with the last of her silver. Yet he made no move to show her the way.
Through heartache and fear, indignation rose. “Well, where is he?” she demanded.
“Doctor took him.”
Once again, hope fluttered in her breast. Maybe they’d noticed he was ill and brought him to an infirmary. Perhaps they’d let him recover and retry his case. It was possible the pardon would be unnecessary, after all.
“He’s not here?” she asked.
The man shook his head.
It was like pulling teeth to get answers from the cur, and this after she’d paid. Impatience and worry combined to make her jaw tighten and her words sound shrewish. “Where did the doctor take him to, then?”
“The graveyard, mistress.”
Eighty
“THE GRAVEYARD?”A wave of apprehension swamped her. Her chest felt as though it might burst, and her breath came in short, shallow pants. She couldn’t have heard the guard right. “The graveyard? Are you sure? What happened?”
The uniformed man shrugged.
“Tell me what happened! I paid you, damn it!”
She rarely used such language, but it could be effective. He blinked and took a small step back. “He was ill when he came in, you see. A doctor went in to examine him, came out and said he was dead. Of the plague.”
